Dead Wake by Erik Larson | A 15-minute Summary & Analysis: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

By IRB Media

Inside this Instaread Summary & Analysis of Dead Wake

• Summary of entire book

• Introduction to the Important People in the book

• Analysis of the Themes and Author’s Style

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943427079

IRB Media

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Summary

Dead Wake by Erik Larson is a non-fiction account of the German Unterseeboot, or U-boat, sinking of Lusitania, a British merchant vessel belonging to Cunard Line, on May 7, 1915 and its aftermath.

On the night of May 6, 1915, Captain William Thomas reassured the passengers in the first-class lounge as the ship approached the ‘area of war’ off the southern coast of Ireland.

The Great War, later known as World War I, had been raging in France since July 28, 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie.

In August of 1914, President Woodrow Wilson’s wife, Ellen, died of Bright’s disease. Her death left Wilson grief stricken. Two days before her death, Britain entered the war in Europe. Wilson chose to keep America neutral in the war and refused to allow British and German warships to enter US ports.

In September of 1914, German submarines, known as U-boats, sank the British cruiser, HMS Aboukir. Two nearby British naval cruisers, the Hogue and the Cressy, sailed to the aid of the Aboukir’s crew stranded in the water, but the Germans sank both those ships, too. Afterward, the British Admiralty changed its policy, insisting that British ships not attempt to rescue the survivors of U-boat attacks.

In November of 1914, the British acquired a German naval codebook. They created what was known as Room 40, for the purpose of decoding German transmissions between warships and U-boats.

On February 4, 1915, the waters around the British Isles was declared an area of war by the Germans. They insisted that all enemy ships wandering into the area would be